Posts tagged ifa2014

Philips will soon launch a couple of iPhone- and iPad-controlled devices, but they're not the company's usual phone docks or Hue smartlight models -- they're gadgets designed to help suppress persistent pain. The first device (above) called PulseRelief uses Transcutaneous Electronic Nerve Stimulat...

Everything that goes out of fashion, we're told, will eventually come back, which is why we still have a pair of tight leather pants and some bell-bottom flares stashed in the back of our wardrobe. It's a similar trend with consumer technology, and this year's IFA has seen fit to bring back head-m...

It was going to be either me or my male colleague. That's a lie: It was absolutely going to be me. It was my last day at IFA, Europe's biggest technology show, and Brad Molen and I were sitting inside a sparsely decorated smart home that Panasonic had built in the middle of the demo area. Panasoni...

Do you remember Ringly? The idea behind it was that people would use a vibrating ring to alert you about incoming calls, emails or text messages. If you can imagine that same concept, albeit in a smaller and less gendered package, then you have the starting point for the MOTA Smart Ring. Silicon V...

When Kobo launched the Aura, the idea of selling a premium e-reader with a top-line price and a big screen was something of a risk compared to the Kindle juggernaut. When the device went on to become responsible for a full quarter of the Canadian company's sales, it was clear that the risk had pai...

Having built up a consumer-facing business over recent years with smartphones and tablets, Huawei made its first move into wearables this year with a fitness tracker-cum-smartwatch (pictured above). The company is far from finished in this burgeoning product category, though, as Huawei's CEO Richa...

Huawei's supersized flagship may've taken center stage at the company's IFA press conference, but there was still plenty of love in reserve for another new addition to its product range: the Ascend G7. It also caters to those who like their screens big, and the spec sheet is nothing to shrug at. B...

When I met with OM Audio in Manhattan to check out what the company was calling the "world's first levitating Bluetooth speaker," I didn't bat an eye. I had never myself seen a levitating speaker before that day, and a thorough internet search turned up nil. As it turns out, a Taiwanese company ha...

Indisputably, the star of this year's IFA show is going to be wearables: round ones, flashy ones, head-covering ones. After that, though, you're also going to see a lot of super-thin tablets and 2-in-1 PCs, many of them made possible by Intel's new low-power Core M chips. Intel first teased these...

Huawei's a smartphone manufacturer that likes to stay very much on trend. At IFA this year, it unveiled the latest device in its large-screen Ascend Mate series, which includes a fingerprint sensor akin to that of the HTC One Max and iPhone 5s. While that handset was very much the star of the show...

Aluminum sides, chamfered edges, slim profile, solidly built back -- this is what Samsung's chosen as its brand-new design language, and it's why the Galaxy Note 4 and Note Edge (which was introduced this week) have a premium look and feel. But the new Note isn't the only device with the same type...

Philips Hue Beyond is the company's attempt at taking its connected lighting platform to the mainstream. That's why the new range of light fixtures -- lamps, pendant and ceiling lights -- pair a color-changing module with a "tunable" white light for actually being able to see. We managed to sneak...